Pakistan: US drone attack leaves six dead

Britain’s controversial deployment of US-built Reaper drones in Afghanistan will come under scrutiny in court this week in a closed hearing that will see a UK-based drone operator give evidence for the first time (Getty)

A suspected US drone attack in northwest Pakistan has killed six people just outside of the country's remote tribal region, Pakistan authorities confirmed.

Pakistani police and security officials said there were at least two Afghan militants among the dead.

The missiles hit an Islamic seminary in Hangu district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province early Thursday morning.

Fareed Khan, a police officer, said the unmanned aircraft fired at least three rockets at the madrassa in the Hangu district just before sunrise.

The attack is the second to hit the outside the tribal area. Most drone strikes occur in the lawless North Waziristan region where Taliban insurgents are holed up, and are rare in densely populated places like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The two Afghan militants killed in the strike were believed to be from the Haqqani network.

The previous drone strike in Pakistan on 1 November killed Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud in the militant stronghold of Miranshah in northwest Pakistan, in an attack denounced by Pakistan.

The attack took place a day after Pakistan's foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz was quoted as saying that the United States had promised not to conduct drone strikes while the government tries to engage the Taliban in peace talks.

The identities of those killed on Thursday were not immediately clear.

Additional reporting by agencies